Monthly Archives: September 2014

I have been fortunate to receive quite a few ARE/ARCs of books recently. This is an extended review of one of them that I received from a Shelf Awareness giveaway. The second review is the second in the series. (There may be spoilers in these extended reviews, but I have tried to limit them.)

This is a speculative, dystopian novel that leaves the reader thinking about just how plausible that these events might be. Further, the reader wonders about the possibilities of such events occurring. Designer people? People bred without emotions or thoughts of their own? Controlling people who are in charge?

Set in the future, it is several hundred years after a man-made apocalypse in which elitists killed off a majority of the population. They divided the world into the Insiders and Outsiders. Insiders have been selected to live within the closed off City Center, and the Outsiders are rebels (and terrorists) scraping by in the toxic world beyond those walls. The Insiders are constantly cautioned and controlled regarding the evils that lurk outside their comfortable lives.

Yet Ava Rhodes, the protagonist, doesn’t quite fit into the mold for which she has been created. As Graduation Day approaches, she is slated to be the next Queen of City Center, but rebels at being that perfect person. She’d rather watch old movies (like Roman Holiday) with her friend Delilah, a person on the second tier of society. During stolen time away from her Handlers, she encounters Joseph, an Outsider (and presumed terrorist) who has broken into City Center. Joseph’s role in her life is such that he may just open her eyes to the truth of what her utopian City Center really is.

When she learns the truth, will she able to escape her destiny as the next Queen? Will she continue the life she is expected to lead for the next eighteen years before being retired to Ret-Hav, the island paradise? Or will she help fashion the changes that will bring about new life to the City Center?

This novel is a thoughtful look at what it means to be fully human. Moreover, it is not a typical dystopian story as there are moments that exhibit grace and compassion. It is definitely worth checking out.

The New Agenda
by Simone Pond
Published by Ktown Waters Publishing, June 2014
ISBN# 978-0692208205

Touted as a prequel, this continues the story started in The City Center. It is not exactly a prequel, but it does explain the back-story of Chief Morray, the ruler of City Center. Ava, the protagonist of the first book, is attempting to locate Morray, the leader who escaped. Going to the library archives daily, she reads the history of Morray so that she can rid the world of the man who caused the genocide of so many people. To her, knowledge means the safety of all those she holds dear like her husband Joseph and her daughter Grace. Only by learning as much about him as she can will she be able to figure out where he could be and destroy him.

The story is told in a series of data files where new characters are introduced, and old characters reappear. William Morray is first introduced to the reader through these digital recordings. He is the son of Morray, the architect of what is called the Repatterning, the systematic killing off of anyone who doesn’t measure up to a standard of perfection. William is a troubled, disenfranchised teen. His father is always disappointed with him. His mother is more interested in her lover, Dickson, than her own son. He is bullied by his peers. He prefers his solitude, riding his skateboard, and escaping into drug-induced hazes. Yet, despite this, he craves his father’s love, attention, and approval. He wants to help with the formation of the utopia known as the City Center.

Ostensibly, as the final phases of the Repatterning are gearing up, Morray decides to send William and his wife away to protect them. He knows that more people will be killed as areas of the city are demolished. He knows that the outer realms have become lawless; thus, he sends them to the Denver Subterranea, an underground facility to live among the chosen people until the Repatterning is complete.

Throughout, the reader learns what is really happening. Through William’s eyes, the reader learns the truth about Morray and the changes brought about by Dickson and Morray that lead to the events in the first book, and basically what makes Morray, Morray.

Although The New Agenda could be read first, don’t. Read them in the order, and let the story unfold, the mystery be revealed. Read The City Center first. This second book in this post-apocalyptic, dystopian world is a perfectly balanced set-up for further episodes (or so it is hoped).

As mentioned in my last post, I received and read another Advanced Reader Copy in the form of an uncorrected proof through a Goodreads giveaway. The novel is The Son by Jo Nesbo, who is known for the Harry Hole series. As promised, here is my extended review.

The Son
By Jo Nesbo
Published by Alfred A. Knopf, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-35137-9

Jo Nesbo, a Norwegian author, is known for his suspense novels. The Son is his latest foray into this genre. Basically, the premise of the story is that a young man has been imprisoned for crimes he did not commit in exchange for a free-flowing supply of heroin. The protagonist, Sonny Lofthus, is the son of a corrupt police officer who committed suicide years earlier. This suicide sets off the chain of events that drive the story, and by extension, Sonny himself.

After Ab Lofthus, Sonny’s father, committed suicide, Sonny drowns his grief with heroin, which leads to relatively minor illegal activities to fund his addiction. Eventually, he gets jailed for his actions, but is offered a deal to provide him with all the heroin he wants if he confesses to various crimes including murder. Keeping him supplied with the drug helps so many people in the criminal underbelly of Oslo (in particular, the crime overlord known as The Twin) that he becomes the fall guy for other people as well.

Sonny is content enough with this for nearly twelve years, that is, until he hears the confession of another prisoner. Because of his aloofness, silence, and attitude, over time other prisoners have come to consider him somewhat of a religious figure (and friend) and come to him for absolution and blessing.

With this confession, Sonny puts a plan into motion. Over time, he manages to break his heroin habit, and then he makes a daring escape from the prison. Those who put him there now pay the price as he slowly takes his revenge upon those them. He is also after the corrupt policeman who is the mole in the department, and hopefully, may even clear his father’s name. Yet, even as he hunts down those who are corrupt, he is the one being hunted.

In the meantime, his father’s best friend, Simon Kefas, and new associate Kari Adel are investigating some deaths when the pair becomes involved in tracking Sonny after his escape. Kari is new to his department; he finds himself mentoring her. She does, however, gather information that is necessary to help Simon as he works to both help and capture Sonny.

There are several subplots that run throughout the story, but rather than potentially provide spoilers, suffice it to say, that there are enough twists and turns to make it a complex, mesmerizing tale of suspense that makes this reader eager to read more by this author.

This is the first novel I have read by Jo Nesbo, but it won’t be the last.

In the What-the-tuck category, the main character of Sonny has green eyes. In fact, the author mentioned the color green at least three times on one of the early pages of the novel. Because it is uncorrected proof, it could have been changed in the final editing; however, I suspect the author may just be partial to green.

I recently finished reading two Advanced Reader Copies I received. The first is Paula Cappa’s second novel, The Dazzling Darkness, which I received as a Shelf Awareness giveaway; the other is Jo Nesbo’s TheSon, which is an uncorrected proof I received as a Goodreads giveaway. Here is the extended review of the first; the other will be extensively reviewed in a subsequent post.

A child never makes it home from school. Parents and family are frantic to find the child. Rewards are offered; tearful pleas from distraught parents are shown. Unfortunately, it happens all too often as television and radio stations report on abducted and missing persons. This is the premise behind The Dazzling Darkness—a five-year-old child never makes it home from the short walk from school. He seemingly disappears into thin air.

In Paula Cappa’s novel, kindergartner Henry Brooke goes missing as he plays follow-the-leader with his older sister Laura one March afternoon. She is greeted by her mother, Antonia, as she arrives home for afternoon tea, but Henry never shows up. Panicked, Antonia goes looking for him. Soon, his father Adam, the police, and the whole community of Concord, Massachusetts are looking for him.

Although Adam and Antonia hear Henry’s voice near the willow tree in their yard the night he goes missing, he is never seen. Are they hallucinating? Yet, even Laura claims to have heard him.

Their house and the nearby areas are thoroughly searched including Old Willow Cemetery, which abuts the Brooke’s property. The cemetery caretaker, Elias Hatch, is questioned when the sniffer dogs find Henry’s scent inside the cemetery. Yet, despite this, Hatch claims he does not know where Henry is. However, Detective Mike Balducci suspects that Elias knows more than he is telling especially when Hatch seeks sanctuary in the church.

As time passes, the boy is not found, but the cemetery remains the center of the investigation of his disappearance. More than once, Antonia or Adam venture within the locked gates, scaling walls to do so, and each discovers unusual happenings such as the apparition of a long dead woman, Henry’s scent, and a crystal skull.

Rather than ruin the suspense of the novel, it can be said that there is more going on than meets the eye. Having overtones of the paranormal, this is a hard novel to define as it involves Transcendentalism, religion, and faith which are all wrapped up together as the deeper secrets of Old Willow Cemetery are revealed. And it will take all of Antonia’s faith to find Henry. But even if he is returned, will he ever be the same five-year-old? It is a supernatural thriller that is worth exploring.

This is the second of three books in the Catcher Creek series of contemporary romances, but this novel stands alone. While this story stands on its own merits, there are some references to the family dynamics in this one that harkens back to the first in the series, The Trouble with Cowboys.

Having not read the first novel in the series didn’t affect this reader’s ability to get into the story of Rachel Sorentino’s and Vaughn Cooper’s secret, but reluctant, romance. Rachel is one of three sisters, who run a ranch in Catcher Creek, New Mexico. Each of the sisters has their strengths, and Rachel’s is that of being the cowgirl rancher. She works to keep the ranch running while her sisters are in charge of making the ranch a tourist destination. Vandals are targeting the ranch though. Protecting her sisters is her main concern as she keeps the graffiti and destruction as a secret from Amy and Jenna as well as the local sheriff, Vaughn Cooper.

As the novel opens, Rachel, riding her favorite horse Lincoln, discovers a group of four men drinking beer and spray painting a huge boulder on her property. At this, she grabs her camera, takes photos of the men, their truck, and the license plate before grabbing a gun. In an attempt to scare them off, she shoots a few bullets in their direction. Previous vandals have always left when she had fired warning shots, but this time the men shoot back with high-powered rifles. They manage to graze her arm as well as seriously wound her horse. Angered by the loss of her horse (she has to put down her horse because his wounds are so severe), she comes out firing, wounding at least one of the men in the process. She also calls the only person she can think of…the sheriff, Vaughn. He happens to be the man that she has had an on-again, off-again affair in the past.

It is this relationship that drives the novel as his personal life interferes with his professional life. He should recuse himself from the investigation of the shooting, but he also wants to protect the woman that he secretly loves.

Yet, Rachel doesn’t make it easy on him. She acts guilty and can’t resist investigating the shooting herself, rather than letting the sheriff’s department do their job. While the two reluctant lovers try to stay apart, circumstances always intervene that bring them together in compromising situations of high sexual tension.

Added to that, his nemesis, the local police chief of Tucumcari, is the father of one of the men who was shot. He is threatening Vaughn’s family, in particular his kleptomaniac sister, Gwen, with jail and scandal.

Untangling all this mess, which includes a drug ring and murders, and trying to stay clear of Rachel is making Vaughn crazy. It’s the same for Rachel as she tries to deny her love for Vaughn. Neither wants to tell the other how much they care especially since both feel guilty over events in the past. It is only through manipulation on the part of friends and family that they finally work out their issues and declare their love for each other.

This is not heavy reading material, but provides a spicy, erotic romance story. So much so that I will probably check out the two other romances in the Catcher Creek series as cowboys, especially cowboy lawmen are hot!